According to the website of the german section of the Mars Society the russian company Aerospace Systems Ltd plans to launch a manned Mars mission in four years and eight months. Thze mission is said to be a low-cost mission finaced commercially and by sponsoring. According to the article there are similarities to Zubrin's Mars-Direct. The russian space agency is providing money for this plan too.

I think with a basically unlimited budget a manned mission to Mars could be launched in 4 years I just don't see it happening by anybody. The basic technology exists for pretty much everything needed to get there and back but putting it all together, even using Zubrins Mars Direct idea (which I think is the best solution at this time) I would be very surprised if anyone steps foot on Mars within 15 years and I'm usually overly optimistic about that stuff.

If you didn't stop to test everything you could crash a program through in 4 years...

Especially with old russian engineers...

Is there anything those guys can't do!? After looking at their plan I suppose it could really be done in a best-case everything-goes-right scinerio, which is to say no way in the world practically. If you tweaked their numbers to $10 billion for a Mars mission in eight years it could probably be done with the good o'l Russian rocket dudes. Gosh, I just can't see someone with a plan like that being taken seriously by a government, especially one as cash-starved as Russia. Even if it could be done with only $4-5 billion I doubt the Russian government would allow it.

Regardless, it would still be super cool if these guys actually pulled it off. Gooooo, these guys!

_________________"Yes, that series of words I just said made perfect sense!"
-Professor Hubert Farnsworth

I have nothing but the deepest respect for Russian engineers. Under Korolev they often worked without pay. Most of the lead engineers including Korolev had been but in the Gulags under terrible conditions only to come out years later, shrug it off and put the first people in space.

Would American engineers launch a satellite without ever even creating a diagram of it? Americans engineers are of the same caliber so they could, but they never would. How many would work for months without pay?

I don't know if that drive could be mustered still in Russia, especially for a private venture... but you never know.